“But the world will always include such misery. And people need music, Gretchen, they need it as much as they need comfort or food.”

“I’m not sure I agree with you. In fact, I’m fairly sure that I don’t. I have to spend my life trying to alleviate misery. Believe me, I have been through all these arguments many times before.”

“Ah, but to choose nursing over music,” I said. “It’s unfathomable to me. Of course nursing is good.” I was too saddened and confused to continue. “How did you make the actual choice?” I asked. “Didn’t the family try to stop you?”

She went on to explain. When she was sixteen, her mother took ill, and for months no one could determine the cause of her illness. Her mother was anemic; she ran a constant fever; finally it was obvious she was wasting away. Tests were made, but the doctors could find no explanation. Everyone felt certain that her mother was going to die. The atmosphere of the house had been poisoned with grief and even bitterness.

“I asked God for a miracle,” she said. “I promised I would never touch the piano keys again as long as I lived, if God would only save my mother. I promised I would enter the convent as soon as I was allowed—that I would devote my life to nursing the sick and the dying.”

“And your mother was cured.”

“Yes. Within a month she was completely recovered. She’s alive now. She’s retired, she tutors children after school—in a storefront in a black section of Chicago. She has never been sick since, in any way.”

“And you kept the promise?”

She nodded. “I went into the Missionary Sisters when I was seventeen and they sent me to college.”

“And you kept this promise never to touch the piano again?”

She nodded. There was not a trace of regret in her, nor was there a great longing or need for my understanding or approval. In fact, I knew my sadness was obvious to her, and that, if anything, she felt a little concerned for me.

“Were you happy in the convent?”

“Oh, yes,” she said with a little shrug. “Don’t you see? An ordinary life is impossible for someone like me. I have to be doing something hard. I have to be taking risks. I entered this religious order because their missions were in the most remote and treacherous areas of South America. I can’t tell you how I love those jungles!” Her voice became low and almost urgent. “They can’t be hot enough or dangerous enough for me. There are moments when we’re all overworked and tired, when the hospital’s overcrowded and the sick children are bedded down outside under lean-tos and in hammocks and I feel so alive! I can’t tell you. I stop maybe long enough to wipe the sweat off my face, to wash my hands, to perhaps drink a glass of water. And I think: I’m alive; I’m here. I’m doing what matters.”